SIPTU has described the current state of the health service as a "bizarre sick joke" perpetrated on the most disadvantaged in society.
It is threatening to hold a number of mass demonstrations in protest at cutbacks in the service.
The union's vice-president, Mr Jack O'Connor, said while wealthy patients receive subsidies from the public purse to secure faster access to treatment poorer patients were exposed to a "never-ending litany of ward closures, staff shortages, and persistently lengthy waiting lists."
Speaking at ICTU's biennial conference in Tralee, Mr O'Connor described the Minister for Health, Mr Martin's blueprint for the health service as an exercise in "smoke and mirrors.
It is clear from the outset that the plan was based on a funding commitment which the Minister wasn't prepared to meet, he claimed.
Mr O'Connor said: "Because the really necessary change - which this Government is studiously avoiding - is the reform of the deep-seated inequities and irrationalities of the present parasitical public-private partnership in health.
He said: "For as long as that two-tier approach remains intact, the present chaotic impoverished public system will continue to lurch from crisis to crisis
He called on unions and other organisations to join forces to campaign for a better health service.
"We should organise at lease one major national demonstration in the early Autumn to provide a platform for people to articulate their preferences in this vital battle of priorities," he added.
